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104 Book Project: March

Wow. March wasn’t so hot with the reading! I was way too busy having a life, I suppose. Damn life. How dare it get in the way of my reading time!

At any rate- five books read this month.

The first book I read was off of my A-Z Reading List. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, is technically a young adult novel, but it doesn’t read like one. It took me a few chapters to get into it, but once I was hooked I was reading under my desk at work to get through it. Great story and I loved the characters. The story is about a clumsy 17 year old who moves to Forks, Washington to be with her father. There she meets a family of vampires and the fun begins. The sequel, another from my list and one that I finished this month, was also very good. New Moon follows the same young girl, Bella, through her 2nd year in Forks, this time dealing with separation from her soul mate. She’s tormented, but begins to revive when she makes friends with Jacob. Unfortunately in Forks, things aren’t always as they seem… These were very good books and easy to read. I’ve loaned them out to two people already, both of who have said very good things. And mmmm, Edward.

Bad Attitude by Sherrilyn Kenyon was another quick read. I didn’t read anything particularly serious this month, apparently. Like Kenyon’s other books, this has a lot of quick wit and sassy dialogue, which I really enjoy. What I missed in this (that I get from her other books) was the paranormal aspect. This book, regretfully, had no vampires, no creepy magical characters, and no gods or goddesses. Instead, it dealt with a super-secret government agency of assassins who have a mission- kill the bad assassins. It was still good, but I’d rather pick up and reread one of her other books.

I loved We’re Just Like You, Only Prettier by Celia Rivenbark. The book is a collection of essays by a self-procalimed “tarnished Southern belle.” Each essay had it’s own moment of hilarity and I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion. One of my favorite sections was what she had to say about plumbers.

Anyway, we quickly learned that when you live in an old house, you discover that there are two types of plumbers. The first is fresh-faced, wears many cell phones and pagers, and drives a new truck with no pipes on it. These plumbers will run screaming back to their laptops and time-shares when they see octogenarian plumbing.

They only do “new construction.” They take early lunch breaks for things like foccacia sandwiches and chai. They are weenies.

The second kind of plumber arrives with three days’ stubble, scary-looking stains on his shirt, dirty boots, and a rusty truck loaded down with all manner of hoses and pipes. He never answers the cell phone buzzing away in his truck. It’s a Christmas present from his wife, who dutifully charges it every night in hopes that one day he might actually answer it. These plumbers take no lunch at all most days because they’re mucking around in the basement of a house on the coast, elegantly cussing the long-dead idiot who decided that was a good idea.

A friend summed it up thusly: “When it comes to plumbers, no butt crack, no good.”

A great read and it’s quick. You can set it down and come back to it a month later without having to backtrack.

The last book that I managed to finish was The Journal Of Mortifying Moments by Robyn Harding. This was yet another one of those books that was cute and fun to read, but also predictable and not something that I’d go running out to recommend to everybody and their dog. If you’ve got time and nothing pressing to read, pick it up and you’ll enjoy it, but maybe get it from the library.

I need to get my ass in gear! I haven’t completed nearly enough of my Reading List and I’m falling behind on my target of 104 books for the year. I think April needs to be a reading list only month! What is everybody else reading? Anything good?